


enough

by goodmorningbeloved



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: (as domestic as it can get with his working habits), Domesticity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 13:31:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6376954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorningbeloved/pseuds/goodmorningbeloved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dinner goes cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	enough

**Author's Note:**

> "...Knox worried that Hamilton was too driven and prone to overwork, too eager to compensate for lost time..."  
> -from page 35 of _Alexander Hamilton_ by Ron Chernow

The evening is cold, the bedroom warmed only by a single short candle flickering at the head of the desk. Alexander's elbow aches from its position, propped against the hard desk for the hours it's been, but he has felt worse, been through worse, he thinks.

Somewhere between pages five and six, Laurens had claimed he needed fresh air, a break. Alexander had acknowledged him with a small hum, the largest distraction he could afford when there was a four-line-long phrase swirling in his thoughts, clamoring impatiently to be translated by his hand.

Laurens returns as he's writing the last line of page seven and plucking out an eighth. When Laurens pauses by the back of his chair and smooths a hand up the line of his back, Alexander hears a silent, _Take a break_. In the middle of the word _ashamed_ , Laurens's hand drops away. His footsteps are soft as they retreat out of the room, and Alexander knows that Laurens knows him well enough to keep from actually making such a request.

The ache muddles away during page ten, though the side of his writing hand is starting to feel worn. Alexander pauses once to inspect how badly smudged his hand is already. When he resumes writing, he feels an ugly, familiar feeling of _lostlostlost,_ the number of strokes he could have made in those ten seconds he was idle.

A plate appears on the desk as he's scratching something out on page thirteen. The hand returns, this time the briefest of touches along the back of his neck, before Laurens is gathering up his own papers and leaving the room again.

Dinner goes cold. Alexander barely notices the food at first, and in the single glance he spares it, he imagines the cold pulling the plate down to its level, imagines the skin of the food relinquishing the last of its warmth to the greedy air. If he elbows the plate, it is by accident as he reaches for a fourteenth page.

In the reach for a fifteenth, he nudges the inkwell instead, sending splotches of ink splattering on mahogany. He hisses in frustration but only moves his papers so that they do not stain. As he writes _mortals_ , his _s_ comes out shaky as a second set of hands brushes by his arm, pressing a damp cloth to the spilled ink.

On the twentieth page, something warm, soft, settles over his shoulders. 

On the page after that, he hears the bedroom door closing and Laurens’s footsteps, these quiet, unhurried clips, coming closer. Fingers smooth through his hair, a gesture that Alexander allows himself to lean into as he scribes a comma. The shadows thrown against the wall shift as he feels lips press against his temple.

_I am retiring to bed, Alexander,_ Laurens murmurs.

Alexander lets the tip of his quill rest against the beginning of an _f_ as he tilts his head so that those lips brush across his forehead instead.

_I will join you shortly_ , he promises as he reaches for the inkwell.

Twenty becomes twenty-one.

On twenty-four, he remembers Laurens once cradling his hand in his and telling him,  _I know what you believe about time in idleness, that it is wasted._ He remembers Laurens kissing his knuckles, his palm,  _But I do not regret a single moment I spend simply being by your side._

On the twenty-seventh page, he flourishes too hard and the warm-something drops to the floor in a noisy rustle. It’s enough to jar him from his writing. Alexander freezes, looks up. The candle has been replaced by a taller one.

He becomes aware everything slowly, sluggishly, as a man does when waking from a long sleep. He first notices the sound of soft snoring behind him, then the sound of insects tittering by the still-open window. He sees the pile of finished papers, the half-filled inkwell. There are rereads to be done, edits to be made, sentences to be ravaged and rebuilt, verbs to be fortified— The plate is gone. He notices the cold nipping his skin. 

He moves a leg, and it catches on the blanket that has fallen in a heap around the legs of his chair. He blinks.

When he stands, the joints in his legs scream. He places the twenty-eighth page on top of the others, and he leans his weight on his legs insistently.

There is a body on the right side of the bed, curled in on itself. A chest rises and dips in even breathing, a head of curls barely visible from under a longcoat that Laurens has wrapped around himself in lieu of sheets.

Alexander picks up the blanket and thinks, _John, you fool_. It is an enamored thought.

He kicks off his shoes before heading to the bed. Exhaustion doesn’t truly hit him until his knees touch the mattress, and then he is lowering himself all too gladly next to Laurens. The mattress creaks — an old thing, really — as he reaches over Laurens’s form for a book on the bedside table.

Laurens stirs, mumbling something under his breath as he twists around, seeking the warmth of Alexander’s body. Alexander catches the edge of his book and lets Laurens draw towards him, lets him use his outstretched, ink-stained arm as a pillow. 

With his free hand, he knocks the coat away and pulls the blanket over them instead, and Laurens hums contently, tucking his head under Alexander’s chin. Alexander finds his hand between them, holds it there between their chests so his knuckles can feel the faintest thrums of Laurens’s heartbeat. _Thank you_ , this says.

Alexander doesn’t need to look at the window to know that the day will be arriving soon, nor to know how long it will take for his body to accept sleep.

Until then, Alexander presses a kiss to his Laurens’s hair, adjusts himself so he can open the book, and begins on page one.


End file.
